Otterbox Banner Raises More Questions, Company Claims No Knowledge of Next iPhone

Yesterday’s Otterbox iPhone 4S packaging leak made quite the stir, and today a banner on their website isn’t helping either.

The Banner above is purposefully ambiguous, and when clicked on leads visitors to a sign-up page where Otterbox will notify you as soon as they have cases available for the new iPhone. However, according to Kelly Richardson of Otterbox, they’re as clueless as the rest of us on what Apple is planning.

TUAW caught up with Richardson and she explained that Otterbox doesn’t know if there will be one iPhone model or two, and they rely on the blogosphere as much as anybody to plan their future product moves.

“Like many, we are watching the rumor sites and using information to plan ahead as much as we can.” - Richardson

Otterbox has pledged support for whatever product Apple releases, but they’re not commenting on or leaking any information, save the photos that somehow turned up yesterday. Also, Richardson told TUAW Otterbox does not have a confidentiality agreement with Apple. Which, given Apple’s insanse security practices, likely means Otterbox doesn’t get much information beforehand about iDevices.

Richardson did acknowledge the leaked photos yesterday though.

“What was circulating yesterday was not a case image for the iPHone 4S, but a packaging design,” Richardson told TUAW. The source of the photos hasn’t been identified, and Richardson claims that Otterbox isn’t trying to sneak a message out to the hungry blogosphere with the leaked images or today’s banner.

Case manufacturers like Otterbox—if they are as in the dark as they claim—must hate dealing with Apple product launches. China can turn around products fast, but for cases like Otterbox's Defender series precise device measurements are essential to producing a quality product. Some customers have complained about Otterbox's iPhone 4 cases suffering from some quality issues compared to their iPhone 3G/3GS offerings because of the quick design to production turnaround.

Hopefully they're not as in the dark as they claim, and some of what leaked isn't just hot air. Concrete information regarding the upcoming iPhone(s) is tough to come by.

They were probably contacted by an Apple representative regarding the case package leak from yesterday. This is there response. Nothing new here. Companies do this all the time to try and sweep up their mess.

They were probably contacted by an Apple representative regarding the case package leak from yesterday. This is there response. Nothing new here. Companies do this all the time to try and sweep up their mess.

Well as far as package design goes we have seen companies ship out product with a different name than what Apple finally decides is fit for the hardware (iPhone 4G anyone?). You can bet though that the big companies that make cases are not going to make cases based on rumor and lose money. If Apple gives them design specs they will make the cases to those specs and odds are highly likely they are bound to a NDA.

I don't believe Apple will give info to case makers pre-release. Why would they? They have nothing to gain from it. And if Otterbox can't keep their own plans secret, how are they going to protect real info?